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Monday, October 28, 2013

Preliminary Thoughts about Force on Force

Over the last week or two, I've been reading the Force on Force rules. I've not yet fully processed all their nuances, but there are certain elements that have relevance as I rewrite my own rules set.

Force on Force combines two key design decisions. First, it places its greatest emphasis on the skill levels of the units involved. Second, it largely ignores differences in equipment, and all the micromanagement that entails.

The actual game mechanics are based on poly-sided dice. Every unit's skill (and a few other factors like morale) are rated by dice type: D4 troops are crappy, D6 troops are okay, D10 troops are awseome, etc. When one unit fires on another, the number of models in a unit largely determines the number of dice thrown, plus, if they have a support weapon they throw a few more. The defending unit throws a number of dice based on their unit size, plus cover and other factors. The dice each side throws are compared: higher rolls win. So a more skilled unit has a better chance of winning the toss because its dice will have more sides.

It's a pretty simple mechanic, especially to someone used to 40k or FoW, each of which lovingly describe the different weapon options availabel to squads, their relative characteristics and so forth. I do wonder if it might get too same, too fast, and fail to hold player interest. (In my experience, players love micromanaging list options.) I'm also not a fan of anything but 6-siders - a standard 6-sider produces an adequate range of numbers of most purposes, if used creatively.

Also of interest: how the game handles suppression. In Force on Force, a unit is suppressed if it suffers designated Suppression fire of a given number of incoming dice. The unit must then roll to avoid being Suppressed. So there's no counting hits (as in Flames of War) or accumulating pin markers (like Bolt Action). Again, I've been considering a mechanic more like this for my own game, but I'm not sure how to account for the great diffences in weapons and toughness among sci-fi units. (Does an armored Space Ogre care if it's shot at by .22s? Or only .50 cals and greater? How does it feel about mortars? etc.)